The Sermon on the Mount Pt. 2

Divine Declaration

In this second part of Chapter 5 of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, Our Lord Jesus talks of two subjects. One is the character which true Christians must support and maintain in the world. The other is the relation between His doctrines and those of the Old Testament.

Our Lord uses as illustrations some of the most conspicuous things known to humanity: salt, light, and a city set on a hill. He says, essentially, “Be like that in your home, your business, your church. Be a conspicuous Christian, ready for either ridicule or respect depending upon the people you are with.”

True Christians are to be in the world like salt. Now salt has a peculiar taste of its own, utterly unlike anything else. When mingled with other substances, it preserves them from corruption.

It imparts a portion of its taste to everything it is mixed with. It is useful so long as it preserves its savor, but no longer. Are we true Christians? Then behold here our place and its duties!

True Christians are to be in the world like light. Now it is the property of light to be utterly distinct from darkness. The least spark in a dark room can be seen at once. Of all things created light is the most useful. It enriches. It guides. It cheers. It was the first thing called into being. Without it the world would be a gloomy blank. Are we true Christians? Then behold again our position and its responsibilities!

Surely, if words mean anything, we are meant to learn from these two figures, that there must be something marked, distinct, and peculiar about our character, if we are true Christians.

It will never do to idle through life, thinking and living like others, if we mean to be owned by Christ as His people.

We are to practice concentrated service. Not consecrated service, but concentrated. Consecration (our dedication) would soon become sanctification (holiness) if we would only concentrate on what God wants.

Concentration means pinning down the four corners of the mind until it is settled on what God wants. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is child’s play; its interpretation by the Holy Spirit is the hard work of a saint, and it requires spiritual concentration.

Have we grace? Then it must be seen. Have we the Spirit? Then there must be fruit. Have we any saving religion?

Then there must be a difference of habits, tastes, and turn of mind, between us and those who think only of the world.

“You are the salt of the earth.” Some teachers today seem to think our Lord said, “You are the sugar of the earth,” meaning the ideal of the Christian is gentleness and winsomeness without any curative discomfort. But our Lord’s illustration of a Christian is salt, one of the most concentrated things we know, something that preserves wholesomeness and prevents decay.

It is perfectly clear that true Christianity is something more than being baptized and going to church. “Salt” and “light” imply peculiarity both of heart and life, of faith and practice. We must be singular and unlike the world, if we mean to be saved.

It is a disadvantage to be salt. Think of the action of salt on a wound, and you will realize this. If you get salt into a wound, it hurts - and when God’s children are among those who are “raw” toward God, their presence causes discomfort.

The man who is wrong with God is like an open wound, and when “salt” gets into him it causes annoyance and distress - he becomes spiteful and bitter. The disciples of Jesus today preserve society from corruption; the “salt” of their presence causes irritation, which leads to their persecution.

How are we to maintain the healthy, salty tang of saintliness? By keeping our right relationship to God through Jesus Christ. In this present age, Jesus says, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation … For, indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).

Christians are called to live out Jesus’s teaching in a culture that will not recognize Him, and that spells resistance and very often persecution.

The illustrations our lord uses are all conspicuous: salt, light and city on a hill. There is no possibility of mistaking them. To preserve something from corruption, salt has to be placed in the midst of it. Before it can do its work, it causes excessive irritation - which leads to persecution.

Light attract moths and bats and points out the way for burglars as well as honest people.

A city is a gathering place for all the human driftwood that will not work for its own living, and a Christian will have any number of parasites and ungrateful hangers-on. Jesus would have us remember that other people will certainly defraud us.

These considerations form a powerful temptation: we may want to pretend we are not salt, to put our light under a bushel basket, and to cover our city with a fog. But Jesus allows nothing in the nature of covert discipleship.

“You are the light of the world.” Light cannot be soiled; you may reach for a beam of light with the dirtiest hand, but you leave no mark on it. A sunbeam may shine into the filthiest home in the slum of a city, but it will not be soiled.

Merely moral people may be soiled in spite of their integrity, but those who are made pure by the Holy Spirit cannot be soiled - they are as light

Are we the salt of the earth? Are we the light of the world? Are we allowing God to exhibit in our lives the truth of these startling statements of Jesus Christ?

The relation between our Lord’s teaching and that of the Old Testament, is cleared up by our Lord in one striking sentence. He says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” These are remarkable words. They were deeply important when spoken, as satisfying the natural anxiety of the Jews on the point. They will be deeply important as long as the world stands, as a testimony that the religion of the Old and New Testament is one harmonious whole.

Our Lord makes himself the exact meaning and fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy. His mission, He says, is to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. He further says that any person who breaks the old laws and teaches other people to break them as well will suffer severe impoverishment.

If the old commandments were difficult, our Lord’s principles are unbelievably more difficult.

Everything He teaches is impossible unless He can put into us His Spirit and remake us from within.

There are teachers who argue that the Sermon on the Mount supersedes the Ten Commandments, and that - “because we are not under law but under grace” (Romans 6:15) - it does not matter whether we honour our father and mother, whether we covet, or so on.

The very context of Romans 6 shows that the apostle Paul is exasperated by those who would say that the law is of no consequence for us. Later, Paul writes “the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith”. (Gal. 3:24)

To be “not under law but under grace” does not mean that we can do as we like.

It is surprising how easily we can wriggle out of Jesus Christ’s principles by one or two pious sayings repeated often.

The only safeguard against this is to keep personally related to God. The secret of all spiritual understanding is to walk in the light—not the light of our convictions or our own theories, but the light of God (1 John 1:7). The coming of Christ did not alter the position of the Ten Commandments one hair’s breadth. If anything, it exalted and raised their authority. (Rom. 3:31.)

The law of the Ten Commandments is God’s eternal measure of right and wrong. By it is the knowledge of sin. By it the Spirit shows men their need of Christ and drives them to Him. To it Christ refers His people as their rule and guide for holy living.

The Lord Jesus came to fulfil the predictions of the prophets, who had long foretold that a Saviour would one day appear. He came to fulfil the ceremonial law, by becoming the great sacrifice for sin, to which all the Mosaic offerings had ever pointed.

He came to fulfil the moral law, by yielding to it a perfect obedience, which we could never have yielded—and by paying the penalty for our breach of it with His atoning blood, which we could never have paid. In all these ways He exalted the law of God and made its importance more evident even than it had been before.

We must not think that the Gospel has lowered the standard of personal holiness, and that the Christian is not intended to be as strict and particular about his daily life.

This is a huge mistake, but one that is very common.

The sanctification of the New Testament saint ought to exceed that of him who has nothing but the Old Testament for his guide. The more light we have, the more we ought to love God.

The more clearly, we see our own complete and full forgiveness in Christ, the more heartily ought we to work for His glory. We know what it cost to redeem us far better than the Old Testament saints did. We have read what happened in Gethsemane and on Calvary, and they only saw it dimly and indistinctly as a thing yet to come. May we never forget our obligations! The Christian who is content with a low standard of personal holiness has got much to learn.[1]

Jesus says, “come to Me”. Will you accept His invitation? Amen.

[1] J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Matthew (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1860), 36–39.